Firefox Freeze, Force Minimize, and Restore

[Calum]

To me it doesn't actually sound like a memory-related issue, 400MB of RAM usage isn't that much for a browser these days, certainly not enough to cause it to hang or unexpectedly close down.

Also, to clarify, when I said other branches of Firefox - they're separate projects run by different developers, it's more like a fork of the Firefox project, I just couldn't think of the right word at the time heh.  Working the late shift does that to me sometimes

As for alternative suggestions, I use Chrome at work because we only deploy an old, buggy version of Firefox, I don't use Chrome at home because an add-on I don't want to go without isn't available for it.  uBlock Origin is available for Chrome though and that's my second most valued add-on, so maybe give Google Chrome a try, it's regularly updated and I haven't seen many issues with it personally.

[DartMan 68]

Calum. Thanks again. I'm on Chrome now. It will take getting used to, but so far I like it.

I know that feeling. LoL My friend/boss recently brought me 20+ laptops, 8 aio hp/compaq desktops, and 3 desktops to sort, diagnose, rebuild or pull good parts, scrap, and recycle. I stayed up almost all night that evening and next. He said I could have some of the good stuff and to put the rest on our eBay stores. I like the challenge.

[Calum]

No problem, if you have any trouble with Chrome feel free to ask for any tips/tricks etc, I'm not a power user when it comes to Chrome but I'll help if I can and I'm sure others will, too.

That is quite the challenge, sounds fun I've been on the 1.30pm-10pm shift for 2 weeks on the go, I have a week of "normal" times then another late shift.  I don't mind it so much because there are less distractions out of core hours so I can focus on some of my projects, but it does mean when I get home I may not always make sense!

[DartMan 68]

Calum. Thanks. Chrome has been good so far. No issues. It just took a bit to become used to the layout and organization. I'm not a power user, either, really.

It is a challenge, and it is fun. I've always been a night person. It just feels different and better to me. I know the feeling of sleep debt. LoL Sometimes, I don't sleep until I absolutely have to.

[DaveLembke]

I was thinking about rolling back Firefox to an older version that the problem doesnt happen with, but for the fact that for me its only the initial first start of firefox that I get this issue on multiple systems and the problem goes away until computer rebooted in which the crash condition is random, I have just dealt with it. Glad to see that you found a work around with Chrome. Myself if I had the severity of problems you had I would have uninstalled version 45 and installed 42 or 43 and then have it set to not automatically update. I dont care for chrome. But thats just my preference.

[Calum]

Waterfox released an upgrade to version 46.0.1 the other day, and fingers crossed, I'm seeing greatly reduced RAM usage, been hovering around 600MB for the last few days on the same browser session whereas previously I'd be seeing 1.2-1.5GB or possibly higher by now.
Curious whether anyone has upgraded their Firefox install to 46.x and is seeing an improvement, too?

[DartMan 68]

Dave, Calum. I'm still using Chrome. I've also kept using Firefox. Since v 46.0.1, I have had no problems. Even with up to 15 tabs open at the same time. And it does use quite a bit less memory than it used to. I think I will use both Firefox and Chrome, just in case other issues develop with either of them.

[Geek-9pm]

For what it is worth...
You can have two versions of  Firebox  on Windows..
Custom installation of Firefox